[reformatted ... Les]
- ---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 13:54:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: JOHN M COX <coxj at email.unc.edu>
To: surgelocal <surgelocal at listserv.unc.edu>
Cc: csf at listserv.unc.edu
Subject: Fwd: [nemer-l] Israeli's Prepare to Seige Ramallah (fwd)
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ISRAELIS KILLED IN RAMALLAH - BACKGROUND
ISRAELIS PREPARING TO SEIGE RAMALLAH!
MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 10/12 - 8:30 AM:
Israeli tanks, artillery, and gunships are preparing at this time to
seige the major Palestinian city of Ramallah, just north of Jerusalem.
Pleas are coming from Palestinians by email and phone to do something
to prevent what they fear will be a massacre. The following brief
comments explain the use of Israeli "Death Squads", further explaining
Palestinian attitudes toward the captured Israeli soldiers.
FROM PALESTINIAN HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP LOCATED
IN REFUGEE CAMP NEAR RAMALLAH
"The continuos human rights violations of the belligerent Israeli
Occupation Forces proves that they persist to continue their
aggressive attacks against the Palestinian civilians. They, as well as
the Jewish settlers, continue to shoot at the Palestinian
civilians. In this context, the Undercover Units of the Israeli
Occupation Forces have been involved heavily in the recent wave of the
Israeli aggression against the Palestinians. The Undercover Units were
formed, for the first time, during the Intifada (1987-1994). These
Units constitute the (Death Squads) of the Israeli army. They disguise
themselves as Palestinians and enter Palestinian areas to kill
Palestinians.
Today, a group of the Israeli Undercover Units/ Death Squads entered
the city of Ramallah in the West Bank to kill Palestinians. Two of
them were killed in the city. The circumstances of the incidence are
not clear yet. In such a situation, there is a very high possibility
that the Israelis, either soldiers or settlers or both, will try to
take revenge, which can take the form of massive massacres."
JEWISH SETTLERS ACCUSED IN GRISLY
MURDER OF PALESTINIANS AS CIVILIAN ATTACKS GROW
by Hisham Abdallah
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Oct 9 (AFP) - Palestinians accused Jewish
settlers Monday of torturing and murdering a West Bank man in the
latest in a disturbing wave of attacks by Israeli civilians against
Palestinians and other Arabs.
Issam Joudeh Hamad, 38, was killed overnight and his body dumped near
the West Bank town of Ramallah, becoming one more victim of more than
a week of Israeli-Palestinian violence that has claimed the lives of
almost 100 people.
Hospital sources said Hamad had been shot, his skull and several bones
smashed and his body scarred with cigarette burns, but earlier reports
from eyewitnesses that his eyes had been ripped out could not be
confirmed.
A Fatah official from Hamad's village of Um Safaa, Hisham Abu Myriam,
said the man was driving near his home when he was arrested by Israeli
soldiers and then whisked away to the nearby settlement of Hallamish.
His body was found the day after in a field not far from the
settlement.
The Israeli army said however that Hamad was killed in a car accident.
Colonel Gal Hirsh, military commander for the central region that
covers the West Bank, told AFP, "He was driving very fast and his car
rolled over a few times."
"Yesterday was Yom Kippur (the holiest day in the Jewish calendar) and
my forces did not move at all," Hirsh said. "I condemn what the
Palestinians are doing with this story, using it to try to set fire"
to the situation.
Palestinians say Jewish settlers have committed numerous acts of
vandalism and harassment in parts of the West Bank and in the Arab
districts of Jerusalem.
"They are waging criminal acts against our citizens and the Israeli
government must act immediately to bring them to an end," Palestinian
leader Yasser Arafat told reporters in Gaza.
Mustapha Bargouthi of the Palestinian Medical Relief Committee said
there had been 35 attacks by settlers against Palestinians in the past
few days, but did not elaborate.
"We are facing a campaign by settlers in the full view and knowledge
of the Israeli army and the government," he said.
Palestinian human rights group LAW said settlers, often armed with
firearms, had been attacking Palestinians and their property over the
past two days.
"This has often occurred in sight of the Israeli army," LAW said,
adding that it considered the shooting of Palestinians by Israeli
soldiers had "opened the door" for settlers to add to the bloodshed.
Members of Israel's Arab population -- Palestinians who remained after
the creation of the Jewish state in 1948 -- complain too that they are
subjected to attacks by both Israeli civilians and police.
Arab Israeli MP Azmi Bishara called for UN chief Kofi Annan to
intervene to stem an "escalation of violence" against the nation's
Arab minority after a rampage by a mob of young Jews against Arab
residents of Nazareth.
The attacks left two Arab Israelis dead and many more wounded.
"Since the commencement of what has come to be known as the al-Aqsa
intifada we have been living in a grave state of danger," Bishara said
in a letter to Annan, due in the region later in a bid to quell the
bloody unrest.
"Since the Israeli authorities are unable to offer us protection, but
rather are the perpetrators of the violence directed against us, I see
no choice but to ask you to meet with us and call upon the
international community to intervene on our behalf,' said Bishara.
Twelve Arab Israelis have been killed, most in violent clashes with
police as they demonstrated against the fighting in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip sparked by a visit by Israeli opposition leader Ariel
Sharon to a disputed holy site in Jerusalem.
Israeli Jews have attacked Arab citizens, burning business
establishments, descrating a mosque in the Galilee and stoning the
home of Bishara himself in Nazareth, the MP said.
Israeli peace group Gush Shalom charged that the two killed in the
overnight attacks in Nazareth were victims of a "pogrom" by a mob of
1,000 Jews.
"The police stood aside and did not interfere, but when inhabitants of
Nazareth rushed to defend themselves the police attacked them -- first
with tear gas and later with live ammunition," the group said in a
statement.
At the funeral of the men Monday several Arabs were injured in renewed
clashes with the police.
On Sunday, the chief rabbi of Israel's Ashkenazi Jews, Israel Lau,
condemned the wave of attacks against the Arabs, saying: "It is
impermissible for people to take justice into their own hands and
mistreat Arabs."
MiD-EasT RealitieS - www.MiddleEast.Org
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